Coventry eased into the second round of the Carling Cup with a comfortable victory at Nene Park against Rushden & Diamonds.

Goals from Gary McSheffrey, Matt Heath and Andy Morrell shot the Sky Blues into the next round but the home side will be kicking themselves after they failed to take two good chances in the opening half.

McSheffrey struck on eight minutes when Stern John got away from John Dempster and when Marcus Hall's cross came in, McSheffrey was all alone to stab the ball home from six yards

Eight minutes later, Diamonds missed a glorious chance to equalise when goalkeeper Clayton Ince almost allowed Greg Pearson a chance, but the striker missed the target with the goal at his mercy.

The same player missed another excellent chance on 34 minutes when he sprang the offside trap only to see his resultant shot blocked by Ince.

This miss proved costly when four minutes from the interval, Matt Heath scored a second goal. Claus Jorgensen's free-kick on the left came out to captain Micky Doyle on the edge of the penalty area and his attempted shot was deflected into the path of Heath who made no mistake from 10 yards.

Diamonds took the game to the opponents in the second half and thought they had pulled a goal back on 53 minutes but Pearson's effort was ruled offside.

Nine minutes from time, the visitors completed a comfortable victory with the best goal of the night as Doyle's accurate through-ball found Morrell who made no mistake from close range.